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Why doesn't Michael address pedophile Michael Jackson's controversies?

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The new biopic about the King of Pop bills itself as an “honest
portrayal,” but avoids addressing the more controversial aspects of
Jackson’s life and career. 

Michael Jackson is back in the spotlight as a long-developing biopic
about the late pop icon is finally hitting theaters. Directed by Antoine
Fuqua and starring Jackson’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, Michael explores
the life and career of the King of Pop, who died in 2009. 

Billed as an “honest portrayal of the brilliant and complicated” artist,
the film depicts the childhood abuse Jackson endured at the hands of his
father, Joe Jackson, as well as the 1984 Pepsi commercial shoot that
left the pop star with burns on his scalp, precipitating an addiction to
painkillers. 

However, the biopic, which ends in 1988, notably avoids other
controversial aspects of Jackson’s life — specifically, multiple
allegations of child abuse that resulted in lawsuits and highly
publicized court hearings. 

This avoidance of Jackson's controversies has courted criticism,
including from Dan Reed, the director of 2019's Leaving Neverland, a
documentary about two men who allege that Jackson sexually abused them
as children. "How can you tell an authentic story about Michael Jackson
without ever mentioning the fact that he was seriously accused of being
a child molester?" Reed asked in an April 2026 interview with The
Hollywood Reporter. 

According to numerous reports, an earlier version of the film did
address the allegations from Jackson’s perspective, but the filmmakers
were ultimately forced to cut those scenes and reshoot most of the third
act. 

Below, we unpack the allegations against Michael Jackson and how the
film was originally meant to address them. 

What are the allegations against Michael Jackson? 

In 1993, Evan Chandler accused Jackson of molesting his 13-year-old son,
Jordan Chandler. Jackson became friendly with Jordan when he rented a
vehicle from the boy’s stepfather, and often invited the family to spend
weekends at the pop star’s home on Neverland Ranch. 

Jordan told a psychiatrist that Jackson sexually abused him, prompting
the Los Angeles Police Department to open an investigation, during which
they were unable to find any evidence of abuse. 

By September, when Jordan’s family formally filed a lawsuit against
Jackson, news of the allegations had already been widely publicized. 

Jackson, who strongly denied the allegations, canceled the remaining
dates on his Dangerous world tour, and ultimately settled with the
Chandler family in January 1994 for a reported $25 million. The District
Attorneys for Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Counties closed the
investigation into Jackson in September 1994 when the Chandlers stopped
cooperating with law enforcement. 

The investigation was reopened in 2003 when 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo
claimed he'd been having sleepovers with Jackson in the documentary
Living With Michael Jackson. Jackson was charged with multiple accounts
of child abuse, resulting in a highly-publicized 2005 trial that spanned
four months. He was ultimately acquitted on all counts. 

Wade Robson, who testified for Jackson’s defense during that trial,
filed his own lawsuit against the singer’s estate in 2013, four years
after Jackson’s death. 

Robson was five years old when he first met Jackson, who befriended and
began spending time with Robson and his family. He claimed that Jackson
molested him on two occasions, between the ages of seven and 14, but the
statute of limitations expired and the lawsuit was dismissed in 2017. 

Robson revisited the allegations along with another accuser, James
Safechuck, in Leaving Neverland. 

Jackson’s estate has continued to deny the allegations, which they’ve
described as “absolutely false.” 

Why doesn’t Michael address the controversies? 

Variety reported that Michael originally explored the LAPD’s 1993
investigation into Jackson. The first two acts of this early version are
said to have traced the singer’s early life, with the third act largely
devoted to the allegations and how they impacted Jackson and his career.

Late in the production, Jackson’s estate realized that the film was
legally prohibited from including the 1993 allegations due to a clause
in the settlement with Chandler’s family. 

Michael producer Graham King confirmed to WSJ that the film's third act
had to be rewritten and reshot. “I’ve never experienced that where you
finish a film and then find out you didn’t have the legal rights to tell
that story,” said King, who also produced the Oscar-winning Queen biopic
Bohemian Rhapsody. 

Per WSJ’s reporting, Jackson’s estate “paid tens of millions of dollars
for the additional photography, which delayed the film’s release by a
year.” 

King worked with director Fuqua and screenwriter John Logan on a new
third act, which focuses on Jackson “escaping the professional and
psychological influence of his father.” 

Spokespersons for Lionsgate, King, and the attorney representing the
Jackson estate did not respond to Entertainment Weekly's request for
comment. 

What have the cast and crew of Michael said about Jackson’s
controversies? 

King began developing Michael in 2019, around the time that HBO released
Leaving Neverland. The producer called the documentary “very one-sided”
and said that his goal with Michael was “to let the audience decide how
they feel about him.” 

A recent New Yorker profile of Fuqua described the filmmaker as
“skeptical of some of the accusers’ parents.” Fuqua, a veteran director
whose credits include Training Day and The Equalizer films, said, “When
I hear things about us — Black people in particular, especially in a
certain position — there’s always pause.” He added that "sometimes
people do some nasty things for some money.” 

During an appearance on the Today show, stars Colman Domingo and Nia
Long, who play Jackson’s parents Joe and Katherine, were asked how they
would respond to critics claiming that Michael “whitewashed” the
allegations. “The film takes place from the '60s to 1988, so it does not
go into the first allegations in, what, 2005,” said Domingo, erroneously
referring to the 2005 trial, which concerned Jackson’s second accuser. 

“And there's a possibility of a part two that may deal with some other
things that happened afterwards,” the actor added. “This is about the
making of Michael, how he was raised and then how he was trying to find
his voice as an artist and be a solo artist." 

Jaafar Jackson, who portrays Michael in the film, has so far sidestepped
questions about the allegations. At the Michael premiere, when Extra
asked the younger Jackson what he thinks is the biggest “misconception”
about his uncle, he replied, “That he wanted to be white.” 

Screenwriter John Logan, meanwhile, told The Hollywood Reporter,
“Michael is a complicated person, people have complicated opinions, and
that’s fine. We chose to tell the uplifting story of his triumph in the
movie, and that’s what we did.” 

https://ew.com/why-doesnt-michael-address-michael-jacksons-controversies-
11957892 

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Why doesn't Michael address pedophile Michael Jackson's controversies? "Thomas W. Sneddon Jr" <twsjr@ucla.edu> - 2026-04-26 07:17 +0200

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